


Twelve, seventeen, twenty-four.

by beatrixfranklin



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Closeted Character, F/F, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25239247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beatrixfranklin/pseuds/beatrixfranklin
Summary: Sequel to seven, thirteen, fifteen.
Relationships: Lucille Anderson/Valerie Dyer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Twelve, seventeen, twenty-four.

Timothy was twelve.

He was closer to thirteen, the time when a boy becomes a man. When they're expected to start showing interest in the opposite sex. Timothy did, of course, but something else was there too. Something for the boys in his class. The way he silently admired them, watching them play football as he sat across the playground upon the red brick wall, a comic laid in his lap.

He realised he was alone the night his parents didn't see the tall boy sitting on the stairs just within earshot. When they talked for hours about how men who liked men were unnatural and something that could be fixed. The problem was, Timothy didn't feel broken. He knew from studying his father's textbooks that only illness needed to be cured. Love wasn't an illness, surely?

Valerie was seventeen.

Pulling pints for her aunt in The Black Sail had been good for summer money but Val was ready to take flight, escape the dingy streets of Poplar that had been home for nigh on twenty years, see the world with the army.

But it made her stomach churn. She wasn't normal, by Poplar standards at least. Her last male relationship had been a one off, giggly date that was definitely more platonic than it was an act of romance. She was twelve then. So unaware.

Men flirted with her all the time. It came with the territory, hoping they could sway her to top up their bitter or slide a shot across the bar on the sly. It worked, too- with the ditzy younger girls. Val was never swayed and there was good reason. She'd slide shots across to the woman with sparkling blue eyes, the one with the soft floral perfume that caught on Val's work clothes and stuck like a bad dream. She felt her cheeks burn when the pretty blondes laughed at her barmaid banter, stupid jokes she'd picked up from years of experience. The butterflies were undeniable and she thrived off it. 

Don't ask. Don't tell. No dark secrets.

Lucille is twenty-four.

If Lucille thought she'd already seen England to its full extent, horrors and wonders, Poplar was a shock to the system. She had arrived in a blizzard, taken ill and been confined to bed. It was through all of that that she fell, and fell hard. The brunette midwife who she came to learn was named Valerie had been the one to greet her the night she arrived, had soothed her wounds and given her hot tea and warm hugs to fight the cold. It set her mind wandering and for the first time since she arrived, she didn't lie awake with worry and anxiety, she lay awake with butterflies and a head full of stars. This was her new life and she was determined to take it by storm.


End file.
